So maybe Ms Palin is right, and maybe we really are in the end of days… the world’s economy collapses apace and the (politically) dead have started to rise again. Take the UK’s very own Peter Mandelson, Mandy for short. He’s been dead so many times that I’m starting to wonder why anyone hasn’t realised that [...]

Espionage didn’t start with the Cold War… the Romans were at it, as were the Elizabethans, and it was rampant in feudal Japan too. The only difference is that they did it without all the technical gadgetry – the things that make spying fun… perhaps with the exception of the Japanese, since ninjas have always [...]

Pub games, I imagine, were probably developed as a way of settling drunken disputes.  I don’t know how popular these are across the globe, indeed, in the UK they are dying out. But I have had the fortune to play many of them over the years, sometimes whilst inebriated, other times sober. Here’s a run down [...]

Imagine there is a politician, the best there has ever been – competent, intelligent and considered – unfortunately they are also unbelievably ugly. Not just ‘not good looking’ but actually physically repulsive… make children cry repulsive. What are the chances of that politician being elected? Now imagine another politician, photogenic, stylish and sophisticated (it doesn’t mean what [...]

Today we’re going to try and solve one of life’s great mysteries… how do you fix a broken heart? Obviously there are two types, and we’re not talking about the one that requires a surgeon. That said, if any of you happen to be heart surgeons, do say, I’d be very interested in hearing what you [...]

Did I go too far, putting Yoshi in a gimp suit?  I was tempted to use Bowser, but he kind of comes with his own type of spiked fetish-wear. Anyway, I wanted to have a chat with you about Creative Commons and selling music for nothing. Like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails have been giving their music away… [...]

The credit crunch, or crisis, it doesn’t matter so long as a little alliteration is involved, is of great concern. People are going to lose houses, their savings, their jobs and their televisions… people already have… I find however, that it is times like these where the best things about humans start happening again. It is assumed [...]

My aunt is more of a real man than I’ll ever be. Real men – they are the ones who can use lathes, fix cars, cut down trees with axes, survive in the rugged out-doors and can communicate with a stare. They can down endless pints without getting drunk and they can carry off checked shirts [...]

Ever since finding out that I was a humanist, I’ve been trying to cleanse most of the religion based idioms from my day-to-day speech. ‘Bless you’ as a response to sneezing was easily replaced by the secular equivalent of ‘gesundheit’, although I have yet to find away to ask other people to do the same in [...]

I didn’t go to have a look at David Blaine when he supposedly starved himself in a box whilst in London. I was in London at the time, but I figured it was nothing special… people have gone without food for longer, mostly because they had no choice… anyway, he could have been cheating. Now water, [...]

My fatal flaw… one of them at any rate, is taking on massive projects within a limited timescale and still leaving all of the work until the last minute. The older I get, the more I realise that this isn’t so much my flaw as it is a feature of humanity. And so, this is dedicated to [...]

I’ve been away… but I’m back now. I was made an offer I really couldn’t refuse… not in a mafia kind of way, well, a little bit in a mafia kind of way. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about film credits. It used to be the case that when the film was over the screen would turn [...]

The dead generally don’t pull their weight. They don’t cause to much harm, except for when they’re rising again as zombies or vampires… but there is a recently risen corpse that is actually helping us. His name is… was… is?.. Sir Mark Sykes, and he passed away nearly 90 years ago. It was his manner of passing, [...]

It so nearly made it on to the list – It makes you think – alongside all of those other superfluous vocal ticks that plague speakers of the English language. The ones that did make it included starting sentences with ‘basically’ or ‘at the end of the day’ and finishing them with ‘right?’ and ‘you know [...]

I dislike the name ‘Accident & Emergency’. It makes me feel like such a fraud whenever I have to visit that part of the hospital. The last time, I had broken a wrist after losing a fist-fight with a fire door. I felt pretty stupid, since I considered it not to be an accident, but rather [...]

You’ll notice that today’s strip looks a little different. there’s a reason for that… I didn’t make it. I’m a big fan of almost all modern art. I like the way it can be challenging, playful or just plain obscure. However, I can’t stand Damien Hirst. It’s not because his half-a-cow and half-a-shark pieces are just pale [...]

I imagine everyone has been posting about this today. There’s a media frenzy about a scientific endeavour, how cool is that? Except for the fact that the media has, by and large, given far too much room to uneducated and highly-opinioned idiots claiming the world will end. I don’t mind a bit of joking about it, [...]

I’m having a good week with my computer. It so rarely happens, but everything has been running like a well oiled machine… Don’t put oil in your computer, it doesn’t help. Unless it’s a Mac, in which case feel free to give it a go. The best thing is that my little box of circuits is being [...]

Last year it was sequels, this year it is remakes… perhaps next year they’ll just start re-releasing all the films from the year before, but with a subtly different title. I say ‘remakes’, but they have a whole bunch of new words for them now… all of them can be identified by the ‘re’. I can understand [...]

It’s finally happened, Lancaster has turned 0SB. What I mean is, last night I saw them installing our very own Starbucks – In the future every town and city will be dated by the first appearance of a Starbucks – thereby making this year 0SB, the next being 1SB, following that 2SB and so on. I figure [...]

The uncanny valley is a horrible place to live. No one will like you, you’re not quite human and you’re not quite an object… you’re an affront to taste, you’re repulsive. Fortunately, it’s not a place any of us will ever find ourselves, being human, but for our ever-developing robots it is a real possibility. They [...]

Fortune cookies and Benny Hill… Despite being forever associated with Chinese food, and therefore perhaps Chinese culture, the fortune cookie is a Japanese invention, modified in the US where it has become most popular. The Japanese version has different ingredients, but the most noticeable difference is that the fortune is not inside, rather it is tucked in [...]

I’m thinking about getting a robot sidekick. Apart from being an entertaining affectation, I figure having a pair of mechanically operated hands to help out around the place can’t be a bad idea. The problem is, I’m a bit strapped for cash… so I’m going to have to buy second hand. Looking through the classifieds I [...]

Fact tags may well get limited use, but bulls**t tags will be everywhere. I’m assuming you know how to detect if a person is lying. If not, read this article from wikiHow. The great thing is that I’ve spotted two errors in that article… two lies, small ones, but still. Now that we’re all up to scratch [...]

I’d like to speculate… The newspapers really dislike you… well, most of you… the ones that have websites and blogs and such. In fact, the traditional print media, as a whole, sees you as a threat – as competition. And many of you are. You write far wittier, more astute and produce more relevant copy than they [...]